Historical Note

Written by Julia Bachrach, Former Chicago Park District Historian

In the 1830s, Chicago's emerging government adopted the motto "Urbs in horto," a Latin phrase meaning "City in a Garden." The slogan proved to be prophetic. For nearly two centuries, Chicago's citizens have rallied for the creation and protection of parkland, and many of the city's parks have served as testing grounds for important ideas and social movements. Many of the parks were originally created or shaped by nationally acclaimed architects, planners, landscape designers or artists, such as Daniel H. Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., Jens Jensen, Alfred Caldwell and Lorado Taft.

The earliest parks were created in Chicago between the 1830s and 1860s. Grant Park began as a strip of green space along Lake Michigan known as Lake Park. On the city’s north side, a physician, Dr. John Rauch, led a successful campaign to set aside a 60-acre section of a public cemetery as parkland, marking the beginnings of Lincoln Park. As Chicagoans increasingly recognized the need for parks throughout the city, a movement emerged which led to the formation of one of the nation’s first comprehensive park and boulevard systems. This system was spurred by the adoption of three separate acts of state legislation establishing the Lincoln, South, and West Chicago Park Commissions in 1869. Although the three park commissions operated independently, the overall goal was to create a unified ribbon of green that would encircle Chicago.

The three agencies each commissioned their own designers to create pleasure grounds and interlinking boulevards that could be enjoyed by the whole city. The Lincoln Park Commissioners hired Swain Nelson and Olof Benson to expand their existing park and to construct the old Lake Shore Drive. The West Chicago Park Commissioners hired William Le Baron Jenney to lay out Humboldt, Garfield and Douglas Parks. The South Park Commission selected the nationally renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. to design its park system, now known as Washington Park, Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance. Olmsted also helped transform Jackson Park into the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and return the site to parkland after the fair closed.

At the turn of the century, each of the three commissions made efforts to expand its park system to respond to the city’s rapidly growing population. The South Park Commissioners worked with D.H. Burnham & Co. architects and Olmsted Brothers landscape architects to pioneer new neighborhood parks that offered recreational opportunities as well as social and educational programs. These parks, which included the nation’s first fieldhouses, were described by President Theodore Roosevelt as “the most notable civic achievement in any American city.” During this period, Prairie style visionary Jens Jensen served as the General Superintendent and Chief Landscape Architect for the entire West Park System. Jensen designed numerous improvements to the existing parks and created plans for small west side parks such as Eckhart and Dvorak Parks. Similarly, the Lincoln Park Commissioners hired Prairie School architect Dwight H. Perkins and landscape gardener Ossian Cole Simonds to create beautifully-designed improvements to Lincoln Park and new small parks such as Hamlin and Seward parks.

At this time, the city was expanding by territory as well as population. The most remarkable increases occurred in 1889, when areas outside of Chicago were annexed to the city. An 1895 state act allowed voters within newly annexed areas to create their own park districts. By 1930, 19 new park districts had been formed resulting in a total of 22 independent agencies operating simultaneously in the city. The smaller park districts often wanted to build fieldhouses, and many of them hired local architect Clarence Hatzfeld to design their buildings.

By 1934, all of Chicago’s 22 park districts were hindered by the Great Depression. To reduce duplication of services, streamline operations and gain access to funding through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, voters approved the Park Consolidation Act of 1934, which established the Chicago Park District (CPD). In order to create jobs, the newly established CPD hired architects, engineers and landscape architects to produce record plans and drawings that provide a detailed understanding of the park buildings and landscapes as they appeared in the 1930s.

Since its formation, the Chicago Park District has continued its tradition of innovative programs and ideas and beautifully designed landscapes and facilities. In the late 1940s, a Ten Year Plan led to dozens of new parks, including a progressive school-park concept. In 1959, the system expanded again when the City of Chicago transferred more than 250 parks, playlots, natatoriums and beaches to the Chicago Park District. As of 2014, the Chicago Park District was the steward of over 8,000 acres of open space, totaling more than 570 parks, 31 beaches, 50 nature areas and 2 world-class conservatories. CPD hosts thousands of special events and cultural, nature, sports and recreational programs. It remains the nation’s leading provider of green space and recreation.

Scope and Content Note

The Chicago Park District Records: Photographs include images created and acquired by the Chicago Park District and predecessor park commissions including Lincoln, South and West Chicago. While staff photographers produced the bulk of the images following the 1934 park commission consolidation, a significant number come from other sources. These sources include construction companies – such as those contracted to build features and facilities like fieldhouses and swimming pools – freelance photographers who photographed special events, aerial photographing companies and amateurs.

The oldest photographs include numerous images created by Chicago-based commercial photographers from the turn of the 19th-century, including George Lawrence and J.W. Taylor. These works, in addition to photographs drawn from un-credited scrapbooks, document the landscape, development, and activity of Chicago’s earliest parks. The Chicago Park District’s staff began producing photographs in 1934. Images printed from 1934 through the late 1960s, frequently bear the stamp of the Photography Unit. These photographs may also be marked with negative numbers, which correspond to the Chicago Park District’s unprocessed negative collection. Photographs made and/or printed from the 1970s forward do not usually include source notes unless they are the result of construction projects or commissions. Notable among the latter are works created by photographers James Iska and Judith Bromley, both of whom documented parks in service of Julia Bachrach’s book, The City in a Garden: A Photographic History of Chicago's Parks.

Topically, photographs in the Chicago Park District Records document site development, park facilities, features (such as gardens, fountains, playgrounds and sculptures), park staff, programmatic activities, special events, the lakeshore and shore protection efforts and road construction and re-development. Given its proximity to parklands, Lake Shore Drive is particularly well documented, as are boulevards and major thoroughfares intersecting large parks. Photographs of people engaged in activities and events also appear in great numbers. These images not only document individual parks, but also record city-wide events, such as Special Olympics and cross-park tournaments.

Periods of notable development in the history of the Chicago Park District are also well represented. From 1934 through the late 1940s, the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) provided support for park development and management. W.P.A. photographers routinely documented construction projects, landscapes and the park features that drew neighborhood populations to Chicago’s parks. The majority of images falling into this category bear notations linking them to the W.P.A. Similarly, the Chicago Park District’s Ten Year Plan resulted in the production of large numbers of photographs documenting undeveloped or potential park properties from the city of Chicago. In 1985 and 1986, an effort to survey the condition of playgrounds across the district produced thousands of photographs of playground equipment.

While the bulk of photographs bear minimal original description, many event photographs from the 1950s-1980s are affixed with press releases that provide important subject identification. Similarly, folders occasionally include ephemera, such as programs or hand-written notes that will provide researchers with contextual information.

As expected, the collection is rich in evidentiary value for studying the growth and evolution of the Chicago Park District’s properties and services. These photographs also enrich the telling of Chicago’s story, particularly with regard to how the demographics and populations served by the city’s parks have changed over time. Viewed with an even wider lens, the photographs document the history of and changes in American leisure activities and the use of public spaces. Activities of a time gone-by, such as toy lending, marbles competitions, open-air music appreciation classes and square dancing festivals, provide a window into the interests and habits of urban-dwellers of an earlier era. At the same time, continuity is shown in those activities, such as swimming lessons, arts and crafts, community concerts and sand-sculpting contests, that Chicago park goers have enjoyed for more than a century.

Arrangement and Series Description

Images in the Chicago Park District Records: Photographs are arranged into two Series.

The contents of Series 1 are organized alphabetically by Park Name, while the contents of Series 2 are organized alphabetically by Subject. Both Series are described hierarchically to the folder-level using consistent nomenclature. Themes that dominate within the hierarchy include:

Facilities. Buildings, such as fieldhouses, boathouses, natatoriums and conservatories

Series 1 is arranged alphabetically by park name and described to the folder-level. In addition to park name, folder-level descriptions include the following components: Chicago Park District assigned four-digit park numbers, subject string and dates, if known or reasonably estimated. A small number of folders also bear descriptive notes, such as “voided property” (for sites no longer administered as a park), geographic or construction notes (such as “moved to Arrigo Park, 1966”) or names that might have been previously assigned to a specific park location (such as “Formerly known as Dauphin Park”).

Physically, materials are divided into boxes suitable for their size and sub-divided by physical characteristics. With a few exceptions, color prints are stored together and separated from black and white prints. Irrespective of box number or material type, researchers will gain intellectual access to the entire collection through the integrated and alphabetized inventory of folders that follows.

Boxes 1-107, 175

The main run of Series 1 is contained in Boxes 1-107 and 175 and primarily consists of black and white photographs no larger than 8 x 10 inches. The bulk of these images date from 1934 through the late 1980s. Sporadically, researchers will find 1960s and 1970s-era color prints (no more than 1% of contents) within these boxes.

Boxes 136-137, 139-142, 163-164, 175

Professionally produced color prints and amateur snapshots are stored in Boxes 136-137 and 139-142, 163-164, and 175. These materials generally date to the 1990s and early 2000s. Approximately 5% of box contents are professional black and white prints made circa 1995.

Boxes 146-147, 151, 153-160, 176-180

Box 162

Box 162 contains a single bound family scrapbook. The scrapbook, dating from 1911-1913, contains portraits of people engaged in leisure activities at multiple parks. Provenance unknown.

Boxes 167-169, 181

Boxes 167-169 contain mostly 8 x 10 black and white images from Lincoln Park Zoo, from the 1930s through the 1980s. Box 181 contains 4 x 5 black and white images, mostly of Lincoln Park Zoo, removed from a photo album. These photographs were donated by a former Zoo employee late in this archiving project.

Series 2 is arranged alphabetically by subject and described to the folder level in language comparable to Series 1. Additional descriptive information assigned to folders includes dates, if known or reasonably estimated, and notes. Notes in Series 2 largely describe the professional function of people, or status of locations.

Contrary to Series 1, Series 2 includes photographs that broadly document the activities of the Chicago Park District that encompassed more than one individual park group. District sponsored events, as well as those sponsored by other entities (Special Olympics, Pan American Games), including tournaments and citywide celebrations, figure prominently in Series 2. Additional topics include Chicago Park District administration, personnel, and administrative activities such as board meetings and press conferences.

Any photographs of parks that are unidentifiable, as well as properties that fall outside the scope of the Chicago Park District (such as Chicago Public School facilities), are also integrated within Series 2.

Physically, materials are divided into boxes suitable for their size and sub-divided by physical characteristics. With a few exceptions, color prints are stored together and separated from black and white prints. Irrespective of box number or material type, researchers will gain intellectual access to the entire collection through the integrated and alphabetized inventory of folders that follows.

Boxes 108-135, 175

The main run of Series 2 is contained in Boxes 108-135 and 175 and primarily consists of black and white photographs no larger than 8 x 10 inches. The bulk of these images dates from 1934 through the late 1980s. Sporadically, researchers will find 1960s and 1970s-era color prints (no more than 1% of contents) within these boxes.

Boxes 138, 143-145, 164-166

Professionally produced color prints and amateur snapshots are stored in Boxes 138, 143-145, and 164-166. These materials generally date to the 1990s and early 2000s. Approximately 5% of box contents are professional black and white prints made circa 1995.

Boxes 148-150, 152, 161, 179

Oversize prints are stored in boxes 148-150, 152, 161 and 179.

Boxes 170-174

These boxes contain head shots for officers in the Chicago Park District police force. The District used to maintain its own force until 1959 when it was folded into the Chicago Police Department. These employee photographs date from the 1940s or 1950s and each officer is identified by last name.